English Department Ph.D Program Alumni

Illinois State University's Ph.D. program in English Studies is distinguished from traditional doctoral programs in English by its emphasis upon connecting research with pedagogical issues and its requirement that all doctoral candidates complete coursework and comprehensive exams exploring the interrelationship among literature and culture, rhetoric and composition, linguistics, and pedagogy. With a success rate of approximately 90% over the past twenty years or so, the Ph.D. program in English Studies at ISU is likely unrivaled by many programs in the placement of doctoral graduates in tenure-track faculty positions and other full-time, education related positions.

Graduates have earned this success because of the program's commitment to preparing future college and university teachers with careful attention to critical issues in pedagogy. Recent dissertations—all of which include the program's required pedagogical component—have addressed issues in rhetoric as well as developmental and advanced composition, the teaching of literature and children's literature in U.S. and global contexts, globalization and the rhetoric of technical communications, applied linguistics, the teaching of English to speakers of other languages, the administration of secondary English teaching preparation programs, and the administration of university writing and learning centers. Our model of integrating areas of research specialization and issues of pedagogy complements and enhances the core mission of Illinois State University, with its tradition of teacher training and its emphasis upon quality undergraduate education.

Additions or Changes

Please contact Sherrie Howe, the English Department Graduate Secretary with any additions or changes. We are interested in corrections, recent awards and publications, stories about life after graduate school, etc. We will update this page and include your information elsewhere on our website.

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Abraham, Ilona. Spring 1986. "From Cosmogony to Eschatology: A Time-Centered Mythic Structure for Four Quartets with Significance for the Teaching of Literature."

Adhikari, Hari Ram. Summer 2012. "Recast(E)ing and "Alien" Veil on the Asian Body: The Western Imaginary and South Asian Identity in Youth Literature." Current Position: BNU-HKBU United International College.

Adika, Prince. Spring 2009. "Remembered Kinship: African and African Diasporean Narratives of Return and Their Relevance." Current Position: University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana.

Agboka, Godwin. Fall 2010. "Participatory Localization: A Social Justice Approach to Decolonizing International Technical Communication Practices." Current Position: University of Houston-Downtown, Houston, TX.

Aitken, Nicole. Fall 2008. "Creating a Connected Classroom: Engaging Students with Multimodal Texts in the Community College Composition Classroom." Current Position: Illinois Central College, East Peoria, IL.

Akman, Beyazit H. Spring 2012. "British Literature and the Turk Before 1800: Representations of the Otooman Empire and Islam From Late Renaissance to the Post- 9/11 Era." Current Position: SUNY Geneseo.

Akman, Filiz Barin. Spring 2014. "Nineteenth Century Orientalist Discourse(s): Western Representations of the Ottoman Society Eastern Women and the Harem in Travelwriting, Fiction, and Art."

Anderson, Maureen. Spring 2007. "'Witch' As Metaphor in America: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of the Linguistic Shaping of Women in Literature." Current Position: University of South Carolina-Salkehatchie, Salkehatchie, SC.

Bosley, Deborah. Summer 1989. "A National Study of the Uses of Collaborative Writing in Business Communication Courses among Members of the ABC." Current Position: University of North Carolina-Charlotte, Charlotte, NC.

Dunbar, Katrina. Fall 2014. "What College Summit Can Teach Us About Preparing Students for Workplace Communication: A Study of Free-Writing and Motivational Feedback Strategies in Technical and Business Writing Classrooms.”

Erickson, Bruce. Summer 2008. "Before Beyond: A Study of a Para-Pedagogy Which Uses Discovery and De-Mystification to Revisit First-Year College Composition." Current Position: Director of Program in Professional Writing, University of Illinois at Champaign Urbana, Urbana, IL.

Gomez Rodriguez, Luis Fernando. Fall 2012. "The Inclusion of Multicultural Literary Texts of the U.S. with the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language: A Pedagogical Convergence to Foster Learners’ Intercultural Communicative Competence." Current Position: Departmento de Lenguas Universidad Pedagogica Nacional Bogota Columbia.

Gorrell, Donna. Summer 1980. "Controlled Composition for Teaching Basic Writing to College Freshmen: A Comparison with Grammar Lessons." St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, MN. (Retired)

Hill, Melvin. Fall 2009. "'The Singing of a Man': The Existential Dimensions in African American Thought and Historical Context." Current Position: University of Tennessee-Martin, Martin, TN.

Holmes, Ken. Spring 1989. "A Process Approach to Teaching Reading and Writing Using the Afro-American Short Story from Chesnutt to Hughes: A Secondary-School Guide for Instruction." Current Position: Southwestern Illinois College, Belleville, IL.

Hoover, Jessica. Spring 2017. "(Re)Claiming History and Visibility Through Rhetorical Sovereignty: The Power of Diné Rhetorics in the Works of Laura Tohe."

Jarvis-Freeman, Billie. Fall 2011. "Issues of Being and Meaning as Critical Engagement: Pedagogical Application in the Works of George MacDonald, C.S. Lewis, and Dorothy L. Sayers." Current Position: Lincoln Christian University, Lincoln, IL.

Jensen, Kyle. Summer 2009. "A Counter-Proposal for Process: Toward the Development of Online Writing Archives." Current Position: University of North Texas, Denton, TX.

Johnston, Emily. Summer 2016. "Split Wounds Diverging Formations of Trauma in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, A\and The Rat Laughed and Once Were Warriors." Current Position: University of Delaware, Newark, DE.

Maciel, Carla. Spring 2007. "Bantu Oral Narratives in the Training of EFL Teachers." Current Position: Pedagogical University of Mozambique, Mozambique

MacLean, John. Summer 2015. "Rhetorics of Engagement Across and About Faith and Worldview Difference." Current Position: ISU NTT.

Malkovich, Amberyl. Spring 2008. "The Imperfect Child: Romanticizing and Socializing the Victorian Child in the Works of Charles Dickens and His Children." Current Position: Concord University, Athens, WV.

Marchant, Jenny. Summer 2003. "The Girl and the Green World: Annia Pratt's Model of Female Development as an Approach to Children's Animal Books." Current Position: Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN.

Marshall, David.
Spring 2016. "The Embodiment and Performance of Complex Character Identity in Open World Computer Games, a Study of Simulation, Emergence and the Experience of Identity in a Cultural Studies Classroom."

Martin, Michael. Spring 2002. "Struggling with the Language of Night: The Development and Applcation of a Postmodern Lens for the Teaching, Reading, and Interpretation of Holocaust Literature." Current Position: Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, TX.

Martin, Michelle. Fall 1997. "Periods, Parody, and Polyphony: Ideology and Heteroglossia in Menstrual Education." Current Position: University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC.

McGrath, Barbara. Spring 2000. "Journeys Toward the Communal: Metaphor and the Construction of Poetic Narrative in the Poetry of Ellen Bryant Voigt, Eavan Boland, and Adrienne Rich, with Implications for a Pedagogy of Communal Voice in Writing." Current Position: University of the Southwest, Hobbes, NM.

Morris, Paul. Summer 2006. "Moving Grammar from the Margins: Exploring an Integrated and Constructivist Approach to Teaching Microstructure." Current Position: San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA.

Muhammad, Masaud. Spring 2014. "Negotiating Identity: Constructions of Young Arabs and the Politics of Indoctrination and Revolt in Children's Literature About the Arab World." Current Position: University of Massachusetts - Boston.

Myonghye, Hong. Fall 1984. "A Guide to the Nineteenth-Century American Short Story for Korean College Teachers." Current Position: Kukjae University, Korea.

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Nance-Carroll, Niall. Spring 2016. "The Stuff of Everyday Life: a Bakhtinian Reading of the Prosaic Worlds of A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh and the House at Pooh Corner, Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl, and David Lodge's Souls and Bodies." Current Position: Post-Doc ISU.

Nersessova, Irina. Spring 2016. "Rhetorics of Silence and Disarticulation in Transgenerational Spaces in World War I and World War II Literature." Current Position: Post-Doc ISU.

Ng, Joseph. Fall 1993. "Writing Intstruction in the Computerized Context: An Ethnographic Case Study of Three College Teachers at Work." Current Position: California State University Monterey Bay, Seaside, CA.

Ngo, Lap. Spring 2006. "Literature as Allusion Processing and Teaching Vietnam-American War Literature." Current Position: International School at Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Vietnam.

Nickoson-Massey, Lee. Summer 2003."The Making and Unmaking of Author(itie)s: On the Complexities of Writing Assessment as a Rhetorically and Institutionally Situated Activity." Current Position: Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH.

Parlier, Sarah. Spring 2013. "The Impact of Contextualizing First Year Composition for Occupational Program Students at the Community College: A Study of Student Learning and Student Perceptions." Current Position: Illinois Central College, East Peoria, IL.

Pavlisin, Peggy. Spring 1982. "Teaching Students to Revise and Proofread: An Experiment with Technical Writing Students." Lincoln Land Community College, Springfield, IL. (Retired).

Pearce, Elizabeth. Fall 2014. "Limitation, Subversion, and Agency: Gendered Spaces in the Works of Margaret Mahy, Cynthia Voigt, and Diana Wynne Jones.” Current Position: University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, TN.

Perkins, Nancy. Fall 1992. "The Echoes Project: Five Case Studies of Students Writing Research Papers Using Primary Sources in a Collaborative Community." Current Position: University of Illinois-Springfield, Springfield, IL.

Pietruszynski, Jeffrey. Spring 2006. "Early Modern Text, Postmodern Students: An Analytical and Pedagogical Perspective on Using New Historicism In Today's Classroom." Current Position: West Virginia State University, Institute, WV.

Price, Stephen. Summer 1985. "A Synthesis of Materials for Using the Process Approach to Teaching Professional Writing." Current Position: Northwestern State University, Natshitoches, LA.

Pullen, Terri. Spring 1997. "The Mental Imagery in Readers' Responses: Emphasizing the Visual in Audience-Centered Theories of Reading." Current Position: University of Western Georgia, Carrollton, GA.

Rowan, Rob. Summer 2015. "Technical Communication as Teaching: A Research Study of the Role and Production of Cognitive Empathy and Motivated Engagement Among Computer Science Majors in the Technical Communication Classroom." Current Position: Case Western Reserve University - Cleveland, OH.

Ruzicka, Dennis. Summer 1998. "Cognitive Style and Individualized Instruction in a Community College Composition Program." Current Position: Ferris State University, Big Rapids,MI.

Silkiluwasha, Mpale. Spring 2012. "The Impact of Globalization on African Children's Literature: Insights from Works by African Writers in the Diaspora." Current Position: University of Dar es Salaam - Tanzania.

Strauch, John. Spring 1986. "Options in the Composing Process: A Textbook for High School Composition." Current Position: Washington High School, Washington, IL.

Swartwout, Susan. Spring 1996. "Being Human: A Nonoppositional Sex-Difference Approach to Twentieth-Century American Short Fiction by Men and Women." Current Position: Southeast Missouri State University, Cape Girardeau, MO.

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Wadden, Paul. Fall 1998. "Doubling and the Holotropic Urge: The Dialogical Rhetoric of Subjectivity in Robert Bly and Adrienne Rich." Current Position: International Christian University, Tokyo, Japan.